30 Creative Honey Recipes, From Cocktails To Chicken Dinners

If you’re like us, you’ve got a jar or squeeze bear of honey kicking around in your cabinets, only to be pulled out when you’re sick (alongside chicken soup maybe?) or atop toast for a quick healthy breakfast. We’re here to tell you, you can use it for a LOT more. From savory weeknight chicken dinners to sticky sweet desserts, we’ve got a recipe here for you. Check out our 30 honey recipes for ideas.

First, some fun facts about honey! We all know honey comes from bees (we won’t get into the sordid details), but did you know that the flowers those bees are pollinating also affects the flavor of the honey? There are a few main types you’ll encounter, and you’ll want to experiment to see which you prefer, whether you’re baking or cooking with it, or enjoying it on its own. We like super floral options like wildflower or clover honey for baking, like in our very sticky sticky buns, our walnut and pistachio baklava, or our honey cake. Smoky mesquite or nutty buckwheat honey can be nice for savory applications, like our honey mustard chicken, honey balsamic glazed Brussels sprouts, or our honey garlic glazed salmon. Orange blossom and lavender honeys are lovely in drinks, like our Arnold Palmer or our gold rush cocktail. Try out different types and see which you like best.

Grocery store honey can be adulterated (the honey industry is a wild one), so though there are some regulations in place in the United States, the extra cheap stuff on the shelves might have more high fructose corn syrup or water in it than you’re expecting. If avoiding that is important to you, it’s better to pay a few more dollars for the good stuff. One of the best options is raw honey, particularly if you can get it from a local beekeeper at somewhere like a farmers market (Fun fact, if you can get it harvested locally, it can be great for fending off the symptoms of seasonal allergies!). This is the best option for when you really want to taste the honey, like on toast, in dressings like hot honey or honey mustard, or when you’re just using it as a garnish, like atop our baked brie.